The Avengers was big, loud, beautiful — but it was missing one very important thing. Where was the famous catch phrase? Why didn't anybody say, "Avengers Assemble"? Did Marvel forget to include it? Was it cut intentionally? We asked Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige what happened, and he explained. Minor spoilers ahead...

Kevin Feige: There wasn't a right place for it, it was cheesy overtime. Here's what I like, the catch phrase that you might expect is not in that movie, but people will walk out of that movie with many different catch phrases. "We have a Hulk" being one of them, that people already use. We didn't say [to director Joss Whedon] "You have to say it in the movie!" We did say, "Is it going to fit anywhere, can you do it anywhere?" And Joss looked. That 360 shot (which is my favorite moment in the whole movie) — if right at the end of that, he goes "Avengers Assemble!" [then] well, we just assembled. You do it without saying, it gives more impact.

Do you have a bunch of deleted films of the cast trying to squeeze it in?

No not that, no.

So what do you think? Did the movie need their trademark line? Did you miss it? Would it have been too cheeseball to include it even in the very end? Probably, but we can imagine it working after the credits, like as a call to deal with some other crisis after the heroes have gone their separate ways. I guess we'll have to wait for Avengers 2, or the next Comic Con panel to hear the words.

Full disclosure: Disney paid for io9's travel and expenses at this press junket.